Friday, July 7, 2017

The Way Marxists Think

Sometimes when I am lacking in the level of initiative and motivation I need to sustain to achieve all my goals short term and long range, I go onto message forums and Facebook groups and join in some debates with Marxists and socialists to get my head right.

Just to think, if I keep staying unmotivated and uninspired long enough, my mind could atrophy so badly I end up like one of these blighted souls! It's a real gut check.

Well recently some one started off a debate asking for some Marxists to justify their belief that wage labor and the employer-employee relationship are inherently exploitative.

One happily obliged:

"Wage
labour pays only a fraction of what it's worse. [I think he meant to type "worth"] That's where the
exploitation happens. Your wage isn't the whole value of your work, most
of it is retained by the boss as surplus, or profit."

To which I responded:

"Of
course the labor is worth more than the wages to the employer. That's
why the employer willingly exchanges the wages for the labor.

But
by the same token, the wages are worth more than the labor to the
employee. That's why the employee willingly exchanges the labor for the
wages."

And a fellow economic literate and clear thinker agreed further down the discussion:

"Wesley's first comment ends the entire thread tbh."

But the Marxist would not relent. Here's how Marxists think:

"Wesley, you're ignoring the threat of homelessness and starvation. There's no willing exchange in the majority of employment"

My obvious answer:

"Who's
making that threat? The employer? No that's the default human
condition. Our ancestors came down from the trees. They had to work to
eat too. A LOT harder than we do."

The Marxist's retort:

"There's
nothing natural about poverty. It is man made and can be undone by men,
it is capitalists and their system which benefits from it

Default
human condition, same thing. I think we're a bit too late on in history
to try and compensate for our downfalls with cave dweller logic"

And my final answer was:

"I guess you're right that the worker must work or face homelessness and starvation, but that's a cry against the nature of reality, not a critique of employers and employees exchanging wages for labor.

The
employer has to keep paying workers and exchanging goods for payment or
else go out of business and be homeless and starve, right? No willing
exchange on her side either? No body engages in willing exchange?
Because we all have to make an effort to live?